Stella Stevens dead at 84: Hollywood star was battling Alzheimer’s disease

Hollywood actress Stella Stevens has died at the age of 84, her family has confirmed.

Stevens – known for starring in The Poseidon Adventure and The Nutty Professor – had been battling Alzheimer’s disease before she passed. 

Her son Andrew Stevens revealed that his mother died Friday in Los Angeles, Variety reports. 

The blonde beauty made her film debut in 1959 and went on to star alongside some of Hollywood’s classic leading men, like Dean Martin and Elvis Presley.

A former Playboy Playmate, Stevens went beyond acting in film and television to work as a director, writer and producer. 

Born Estelle Eggleston in 1938, the Mississippi native eventually moved to Memphis Tennessee, where she met and married her first husband, an electrician named Noble Herman Stephens, at the ago of 16.

Stella gave birth to their son Andrew Stephens in 1955, and divorced Noble two years later. 

While studying at Memphis State College, she was noticed in the school’s production of Bus Stop, and the glowing reviews took her to Hollywood. 

Her very first role was playing a chorus girl in 1959’s Say One for Me, starring Bing Crosby. 

Her contract with 20th Century Fox was subsequently dropped after six months, but she quickly signed with Paramount and went on to win the Golden Globe for New Star of the Year in 1960 for her performance in Say One For Me.

1960 also saw Stevens become Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the moth – kicking off a partnership that spanned the decade as she appeared in numerous pictorials.

Stella followed up the 1962 Elvis film Girls! Girls! Girls! with an acclaimed turn in The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, starring opposite Glenn Ford and Shirley Jones. 

Variety praised her performance, writing: ‘Stella Stevens comes on like gangbusters in her enactment of a brainy but inhibited doll from Montana. It’s a sizzling comedy performance of a kook.’ 

Stella Stevens pictured with Jerry Lewis in 1963’s The Nutty Professor